Regular Council Meeting, 3/7/18

City Council met for its first regular meeting of March on 3/7/2018. The meeting started out with several commendations from the police department and the city related to public safety as well as several financial and purchase related items.

I was especially impressed by the presentation the Police Chief gave to several officers where the patrolmen encountered a volatile and potentially violent incident where through sound decisions were able to de-escalate the situation where a shooting could have easily been an outcome. We seem to always hear about these situations when they fall apart, it was encouraging to hear an encounter that had a better outcome.

Ordinances and discussions of note included:

Proposed Agreement with Forest Park for Prisoner Confinement

Appropriation related to funds movement for expenses and capital purchases

Providing health insurance options for qualified part time fire fighters

Capital purchase for a new bucket truck and backhoe

Proposed agreement for road project with Sharonville on Chesterdale Road

As always full agendas and minutes are available on the Springdale site. This post will just touch on some highlights.

As discussed at the previous meeting Springdale currently has agreements with several other communities to house prisoners for short periods of time. Springdale has a 4 cell facility and typically has room available. This allows us to work with these other communities (often direct neighbors) to help maintain public safety. Forest Park has had agreements in the past for prisoner confinement and this agreement would be more a continuation rather than new.

As I said several times during campaigning last year as well as with other agreements of this type public safety should not just be about what happens directly inside out city, it must take into account what is going on across the yard or over the fence (literally in some cases) as well. The proposed contract has good controls to manage the risk of outside prisoner confinement (liability and similar). Again the emergency clause was initially in the agreement (removed through a motion) and this was a first reading.

Appropriation related to funds movement for expenses and capital purchases

Coming out of a finance committee meeting the prior month the city was looking to moving forward with the replacement of the bucket truck and backhoe (both items well past their useful life. The finance committee recommended that the purchases be done outright rather than financed which would require moving funds planned to be spread out over 3 years forward into this year for the purchase. As this was not planned in the original 2018 budget the change required Council consent. This passed 7-0.

Also as part of the finance meeting (and also germane to the discussion on public safety) was a recommendation to offer qualified part time fire fighters the option for health insurance benefits. Past discussions related to this benefit did not show there would be a great deal of take up – though with the challenges recruiting and maintaining part time firefighters (not to mention the fact that I personally believe essential Health Care is a right not a privilege) even a small take up of this option is a good thing. This passed 7-0.

Capital Purchase for a New Bucket Truck and Backhoe (Emergency Clause)

As mentioned the city’s bucket truck and backhoe were both past their useful life. With mechanical failures the equipment was not worth additional investment. The city, using State collective purchase / bid processes identified replacement equipment which was budgeted and planned. Pics to come! These passed 7-0.

This was a late addition to the agenda due to the timing the joint agreement has with Shaonville. The corner at Cresentville down to near the school has had intermitemnt work done due to water main work, the corner itself has some significant channeling and needs attention. More on this in the future but the work to design / plan and proceed beyond that with the work was approved 7-0.

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